ROCK CAVE – Banks District EMS has added a fourth ambulance to their operation.
John Roby, the director of Banks District EMS, said they always try to keep one ambulance at the Banks District Volunteer Fire Department, while the others are typically on the move.
“We keep one here for secondary 911, for anybody that would need our assistance,” Roby said. “Lewis County signed an agreement with us, so we make runs down there when needed. If their crew is busy, then they call us, or if they’re a long way out, they call us. Same way with Webster County.”
These new agreements went into effect a few months ago.
“We have been very busy,” Roby said. “We’ve done some local medical transports here when folks have called us, but we mainly handle transports to Morgantown. Our biggest contract is with Mon EMS. We do inner facility transports mainly, which means hospital to hospital, hospital to nursing home or hospital back to an originating hospital.”
Banks District EMS also offers community transports if a patient has a medical necessity.
“If they call us and they need a transport for themselves or a loved one to a doctor’s appointment, we do that,” Roby said. “However, they need to call us so we can get all the paperwork ready for them. We have to do that and we have to make sure it’s a medical necessity before we can transport.”
A medical necessity includes being unable to travel via regular vehicles, vans or wheelchairs.
“A medical necessity means they are bed confined, or there is something with their health that makes them unable to stand,” Roby said. “They have to go by cot, or they have to be monitored by an EMS provider.”
Patients requesting a medical transport must give them three to four days notice.
“The hospital has to sort through all the paperwork, and we have to make sure everything is in order before we take anyone, so we need a few days,” Roby said. “Don’t call us for a transport on the day of your appointment.”
He said Banks Distinct EMS has been in operation for an entire year now.
“Our big thing is, we have made it a year, and most EMS’s don’t make it a year,” Roby said. “We have struggled, but we are just now starting to see things running pretty smoothly — but it can be really hard without funding.”
